So it seemed a tad peculiar that Brett Brown called off the Sixers’ first session of two-a-day training camp almost an hour prematurely. Brown reasoned it as an opportunity to slowly bring along his players for what amounts to a string of eight practices in five days, in advance of a preseason European roadtrip.

“The first session of two-a-days in multiple days is always the most dangerous because you get so excited to coach again, so excited to play again that I think if you go overboard in Day 1, it influences Days 5, 6, 7 and 8,” Brown said following the morning session at Saint Joseph’s University’s Hagan Arena. “We want to go hard, go sharp, go at a reasonable duration and come back for a good one tonight.”

The Sixers continue camp today and carry it through Wednesday, before heading overseas for exhibitions Oct. 6 against the local club in Bilbao, Spain, and Oct. 8 against Oklahoma City in Manchester, England.

Saturday, Brown’s team had that inelegant, unfamiliar look going on.

They tried rookie guard Khalif Wyatt at the point guard and shooting guard positions, spelling Michael Carter-Williams and Evan Turner at times. They slotted 6-6 swingman James Anderson, a waiver claim from Houston, with the first team of Spencer Hawes, Thaddeus Young, Turner and Carter-Williams.

If a lineup configuration could be conjured mentally, chances are Brown attempted it.

“It’s messy,” Brown said, “for expected reasons. They don’t know each other. They have a new coach, new teammates, new language. It’s expected to be messy. You see they want to please, but it’s messy for all the expected reasons.

Saturday, Brown said he and the players focused on defensive drills, conditioning and physical play in the early session, before transitioning into walk-through-type drills in the evening practice.

In his first official practice as the Sixers’ coach, Brown said he had to employ self-control to meter how hard he wanted to work his players. His desire to fit in shooting, rebounding, defending, conditioning and everything else under the sun gave way to his concern for over-working his guys.

“There’s a discipline I have to put on myself. I have to remind myself what I’m telling my team,” said Brown, the former San Antonio assistant. “You do want to get going. You do want to get out in a sprint.

“Pop (Spurs coach Gregg Popavich) is the master of understanding the rhythm of an NBA season, how to deliver a team to May. We are so different because of our youth in a bunch of things in relation to building something again. It’s not like you’re trying to deliver a team to May; you’re trying to bring them someplace that’s realistic in April where you can step back and feel you’ve done your job with the starting blocks of a system and a culture.”

Whatever Brown did, it worked for Carter-Williams.

“I think it was a good first day,” the rookie out of Syracuse said. “Tempo is always high. We’re anxious to get out there.”

Said Wyatt: “It was a good flow to practice because we were doing voluntary workouts for three weeks now, I’ll say. That helped us a lot, made this day a lot easier. We knew a lot of the stuff (Brown) was talking about. It wasn’t like he was throwing a bunch of new stuff out to us and we just had to pick it up.”